


You and I, We'll Have Never and a Day

by Sheepnamedpig



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: AAAANGST, AND WILL NEVER WRITE TRUE CHARACTER DEATH, AUish, Again, BUT THERE'S A HAPPY ENDING I SWEAR TO GOD, Character Death, Coma, Emotional self-flagellation, Hallucinations, LIKE LEGIT HAPPY BECAUSE I AM WEAK, M/M, Not 2x11 compatible, POV Second Person, Stiles Saves The Day, blame colethehuman for this, ghost?Stiles, how not to grieve, ugh so bad at tags
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-09
Updated: 2012-08-09
Packaged: 2017-11-11 18:15:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/481428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sheepnamedpig/pseuds/Sheepnamedpig
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He spins away, the force of it slamming you with one last wave of his scent, of the hot salt of brimming tears, and then he's leaving you, feet slapping hard on the concrete as he storms out of the warehouse.</p><p>You don't hear his shitty Jeep start up because you're already sprinting away from the hideout, holding a clawed hand to your throat as though it can stop the howls that want to rip their way out of you.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You and I, We'll Have Never and a Day

**Author's Note:**

> colethehuman on tumblr wrote this: "I had a dream Derek told Stiles he hated him, then Stiles died and Derek could never take it back." and then I accidentally ficced.
> 
> Set in a slightly AU canon post-2x10 and pre-2x11 where Derek and Stiles have been edging toward a relationship. 
> 
> Unbeta'd

“I hate you. I _loathe_ you. You've somehow managed to worm your way into every part of my shitty life and make everything _worse_. You're not wanted here, so get the hell out of my life and _stay_ out.”

Stiles' face goes white, his mouth hanging open as you verbally gut him. You're glad the pack is gone, but also afraid, because with the two of you alone, there's no one here to call you out on the way your heart stutters with the force of your lies.

You don't want to do this. You really don't. And yet, you do, because Stiles is good and loyal and smart and reliable and everything a good pack member ought to be and everything that none of your actual pack members _are_. But Stiles also complicates everything. He makes you relax, makes you joke and snark and sometimes even laugh. He makes you forget your pain and even your anger and calms you down with just the sound of his steady breathing. He makes you weak, makes you strong, turns everything over on its head while laying it all out so clearly you don't know how you ever managed to survive before him.

He's the Allison to your Scott, as agonizing a thought as that is, but without the added baggage of being from a family of people who want to kill you. He's flawed and he's perfect and if this whole shitshow goes further south than it already has, if it ends up being the literal death of him, you think you'd probably just slit your own throat to put yourself out of your misery.

And _that_ , that right there, is why you're doing this. Why you're doing things you know you'll regret for the rest of your life.

Stiles' face goes from bone pale to blood red in half an instant, his teeth clacking as his mouth snaps shut. All traces of the playful flirt from before are gone.

“Fine,” he hisses. His voice is hard and raw, scraping like sandpaper in your ears. You stare into his eyes, honey brown gone positively black with rage, and suddenly you want to cry, want to collapse into him and sob out all the hurt and anger and the impotent frustration you've been stewing in since you killed your family. But you don't because you can't afford that weakness, can't afford the inevitably steep cost of giving in. You're not safe, nobody is safe, and until everything finally _gets_ safe, you just can't risk it.

You refuse to think about the likely probability that you've pushed to hard this time, that even once the dust has finally settled, Stiles will remember this moment and decide he wants nothing to do with you for the rest of forever. You refuse to think about it, but well, better Stiles alive and hating you than Stiles dead.

He spins away, the force of it slamming you with one last wave of his scent, of the hot salt of brimming tears, and then he's leaving you, feet slapping hard on the concrete as he storms out of the warehouse.

You don't hear his shitty Jeep start up because you're already sprinting away from the hideout, holding a clawed hand to your throat as though it can stop the howls that want to rip their way out of you.

You make for the forest and run. You run and run and run, calling on all your strength just shy of fully transforming. You run until your legs give out, until you're just stumbling through the dark forest on shaking legs, and when you get a second wind you run some more. You run until you don't know where you are and then you let yourself collapse, let the strangled howls scream out of you, unheard in the pre-dawn darkness.

&&&

You don't really remember the trip back, but you must've made it, because the next thing you know is a foot kicking you awake.

“Dammit, Derek, _wake up!_ ” someone is shouting. _Scott_ is shouting, when you glare blearily up at the foot's owner.

“What,” you snarl. You feel dizzy and lethargic and none of your limbs seem to want to cooperate. Traitors.

“ _Where's Stiles?_ ” Scott demands, with the impatient force of someone who has asked that too many times and been answered too few.

“How the hell should I know,” you grunt, pushing yourself to your feet. “I haven't seen him since he left here last night.”

“His dad said he never made it home, so-”

That gets your attention.

“What,” you say again. You grope for your cell phone, but it's not in your pocket. “What time is it?”

“It's _three fucking forty_ in the _afternoon_. Stiles never showed up for school and when his dad called me I had to cover for him. But if the school calls him, he'll know I was lying, so we have to find-”

Scott is cut off by the shrill ring of his phone. He fishes it out and glances at it, then double-takes.

“Allison?” he answers hesitantly. The hairs on your nape stand to attention. You know from pack gossip that Scott and Allison are seriously on the outs right now, so if Allison is willingly calling Scott...

“They found him,” you hear her say. Her voice is tinny over the speakers, but even so you can hear the brittle tension in it.

 _No_ , you think. _No no no._

“He's dead.”

&&&

Car accident.

Peter and the kanima and the Argents and Peter again and it's a fucking _car accident_ that kills Stiles. It's so messed up it makes you want to scream.

You do scream, later, in the relative privacy of the forest. You scream because your last words to the one who was put on this world specifically for you were _get the hell out of my life and stay out_.

You scream, you howl, you rage, and then you cry, because you killed your family, then you killed Laura and Peter, and now you've killed Stiles. You slit your throat a dozen times that night, but your Alpha power heals you almost before you can bleed.

&&&

The day of the funeral is clear and bright and you stand away from the crowds, lurking behind a tree like the creeper Stiles always teased you of being.

There's a lot of people, surprisingly. Teachers, neighbors, fellow students, the entire lacrosse team. The pack. Even Jackson and Lydia are there. Peter shows up briefly, though you don't know why he bothers.

It's a pretty simple service and goes quickly. Scott and the Sheriff seem too broken to do much more than stand there and stare at the coffin, but Coach Finstock gets up and says a few words, completely uninvited. A few others step up, some with bland platitudes, a few with stories.

The hacker guy, Danny, you think, says it best:

“I can't really think of any words that would describe Stiles. He was just, well, _Stiles_. And there was really no one else like him.”

You don't stick around to watch the coffin being lowered. You're a glutton for punishment, not an outright masochist.

That night, the werewolves of Beacon Hills mourn their loss, their howls echoing through the valley. You listen, picking out their individual voices: Scott, Isaac, Erica, Erica again, Boyd, _Peter_ , Scott. You don't join them, not even when they start calling out for you. You can't.

&&&

Dandelions were Stiles' favorite flower, you think. _You think_ , but you don't know. All you have to go on is the dandelions that the Sheriff and Scott left on his grave and seriously, dandelions? Except, of course dandelions, because Stiles is, was, _was_ all about the underdog and the perpetually unappreciated. You sniff out a few, plucking them from sidewalks and lawns, and leave the pitiful bundle with the rest, taking one fluffy-headed one back to the warehouse hideout. You bury it in a patch of dirt and don't hope for the best. If it grows it grows, and if it doesn't, well, that's just par for the course in your shittastic life.

You don't go to Stiles' room. You do go to his house though, because apparently you are a masochist, and you stand under his window, breathing deep and listening to his father drink and sob. You feel for the man. You know what it's like to lose everything, to wake up in the morning and realize that you literally have no one.

You hope there's someone looking after him. He's all you have left of Stiles, as strange as that is, and you don't want to lose him too. You'd do it yourself if you thought he would let you and you weren't already too fucked up to look after anyone.

Once, when you're feeling listless and adrift, you stand in the exact place you were when you told him to leave. A faint trace of his scent lingers, all boy-scent and Jeep-scent and tear-scent, and you torture yourself with wondering what would have happened if you'd said the opposite of what you told him that night.

Would he have fallen into your undeserving arms? No, jumped, maybe. Laughed. Stared at you with those big eyes and that baby face, surprised then pleased and a little smug. Would he have kissed you? Just leaned in, because you were about the same height, and pressed his lips against yours? Or would he have been shy and awkward, spitting out sarcasm to draw your attention away from his blush? Or maybe he would've been silent, letting the moment roll off him, like when Erica clutched his sleeve and that striped-shirt kid told the two of you that you made a good pair. Maybe he would've looked uncomfortable, backed away from you, unnerved by the intensity of what you felt for him. Maybe he would've given you the better-as-friends speech and gone back to pining after Lydia Martin. Maybe he would've laughed in your face, like Kate did, though you didn't understand at the time. Maybe-

Maybe, maybe, maybe. You don't know. You'll never know.

&&&

You don't see the pack much anymore. They're pretty easy to avoid, for all their enhanced senses. Maybe that says something about you as a teacher, but you really don't care anymore, not about anything. Peter and Gerard Argent are up to something, forcing your Betas and their associated humans to choose sides and manipulating them, playing them like two chess masters bent over a board. You don't know who's winning.

You do see the Sheriff around a few times. He's taking surprisingly good care of himself, eating well and not drinking too much, but all the energy and drive has gone out of him. He's life-in-death, a corpse in all but name, and you'll be surprised if he makes it to the one year anniversary of his son's death. You'll be surprised if _you_ make it that long.

Deaton comes to see you once, though you're not sure why he's so concerned about you.

“You need to break free of this, Derek. Nothing can be set to right until you break free,” he says, eyes scanning over your face as though you've hidden something there. You turn and walk away. Fuck him. You'll grieve at your own pace.

You don't see Deaton again after that. But then, you spend so much time in the forest that you don't really see much of anyone. The only reason you know your betas are even alive is because of the pack bond, but over time even that fades until their presence is little more than a distant thrum.

The woods are quiet and lonely and when the wind stills and the birds are quiet, sometimes the memories of your conversations with Stiles are loud enough that you can almost hear them. You try to remember them all, try to remember the pitch and cadence of his voice, but it's hard and your memory is full of gaps and inconsistencies. In fact, the only thing you can remember with absolute clarity is the last word he said to you.

“ _Fine_.”

Everything else seems partly obscured, either by some background noise of some thought that you'd had or something you or he had done. It frustrates you and you try to replay those conversations aloud, you voice ringing between the trees as you chase after the few remnants of Stiles that you've managed to cling to. His voice comes through a little clearer when you do it that way, so you fall into the habit of having one-sided conversations with your own memories. It probably makes you look insane, standing in the forest talking to someone who doesn't exist, but you've seen enough people talking to headstones during your visits to the cemetery that you don't let it get to you. After all, you're pretty much doing the same thing, even when you get off track from your memories and start inventing new responses for the Stiles in your head.

 _Dude, I think you're walking in circles. You passed that tree an hour ago,_ you imagine him saying. You have no response, because it's true and the trail of your hour-old scent clinging to the dirt is damning proof, so you glower instead, imagining the amused smirk Stiles would have given you.

In the hideout, you imagine him throwing himself down onto the ancient couch your pack dragged in from somewhere and moaning, _Oh my God, my kingdom for a pizza. I'm staaaarving._ Stiles' whining is nothing more than your imagination, but you go out and buy a pizza anyway. On the way back from the pizza place, the large half-pepperoni, half-combo pizza steaming gently in the passenger's seat, you imagine Stiles cooing, _You're my favorite werewolf ever, dude._

You're driving past the high school and you imagine him saying, _Well, at least Harris can't put me in detention anymore, right?_

“Small mercies,” you snort, then pull over, raising a clawed hand to your face as your vision shifts to red. This whole stupid game you've been playing with yourself, imagining Stiles talking to you, it was supposed to be a comfort, supposed to remind you of the good things. He wasn't meant to talk to you like he knows he's dead, like he's an actual fucking ghost that's haunting you because he's _not_ and you're _alone_ and slowly going _insane_.

You sob, strangling it in your throat. It wasn't supposed to become like that. It wasn't supposed to get this bad. Nothing that has happened is how you meant for things to happen. Laura and Peter and your family and Stiles aren't supposed to be dead and you're not supposed to be alone but they _are_ and it's _not fair._

Blood drips down from where your claws are digging into your forehead and scalp and Stiles looks sadly at you and says, _No, it's really not._

&&&

Mourning Stiles' death is nothing like mourning your family's murder. For one, they never haunted you the way Stiles does. You would remember them, remember how they looked smiling or laughing our tussling with each other and let those memories feed into your anger and your hatred for Kate Argent. But with Stiles' death on your very own hands, there's nowhere for your anger to go, so it just cycles through you, spinning and turning you around until the torment of having your very own Stiles-ghost becomes more of a comfort than not.

He's there all the time now, reading over your shoulder or making faces at the people in other cars while you wait for the light to change, but always in your range of vision. You watch him all the time now, so closely that you don't even notice when the seasons change and it's suddenly winter again.

“I'm sorry,” you say to the ghost. He looks paler than usual under the weak winter sun and when he breathes, there's no cloud of mist. He doesn't speak as much since he went from being a handful of memories to your own personal poltergeist, because for all that Stiles had no brain-to-mouth filter, he was never a motormouth the way everyone liked to think he was.

He looks at you, his expression not solemn per se, but calm and intent.

 _I won't say it's okay,_ he shrugs, _because it's not. But I get why you said what you did._

It's not forgiveness because you don't deserve forgiveness. Not for Kate and definitely not for Stiles. But it's understanding, and that's still more than you deserve.

Stiles still jokes with you, tells you dumb and pointless trivia about the price of bread and New Zealand's aboriginal cultures. He's got about a dozen nicknames for you now, 'Sourwolf' being his favorite, and he uses them on you when you get too low and start eying the native variety of monkshood. He tells stories to distract you, things he's done (usually with Scott), places he's been. You learn why his favorite flower is dandelions, that his mother died of leukemia, that his first name is Genim and that his father's name isn't actually 'Sheriff'. He forces you to talk in turn, asking you question after question until he finally pries the answers out of you. But once he's got you started, it's like he's broken the thing in you that keeps everything bottled up and you can't seem to stop.

So you talk. A lot. You spend whole days telling him about the stupid shit you and Laura used to do as kids, all the friends you used to have in school, all the stories about shapeshifters your parents told you. You talk about your parents, your aunt and two uncles, your cousins. You talk about Peter, how he was everyone's favorite. You talk about Laura, how she was born an Alpha, how she'd been destined to lead the next generation of the Hale pack. You even try to talk about Kate, but your voice seizes in your throat and Stiles hurriedly changes the subject.

So then you talk about baseball and TV shows and cartoons you used to watch but predate Stiles' own childhood. You talk about movies and music and books. You talk about Isaac Asimov because you like science fiction, you talk about Marie de France because you like the way she tells stories, you talk about Shakespeare because you can't stand 'Romeo and Juliet'. You talk about the dictionary, too, because you studied linguistics in college.

Stiles prods you on, always, tearing you open with question after question until you start to hate them and hate him for asking. But you keep going, keep spilling all your thoughts and your knowledge and your stories because Stiles is dead and it's your fault and if Stiles' ghost wants you to talk until your throat bleeds and you drown yourself in your own blood, you're happy to oblige.

Your ears are full of spring rain on young leaves when he asks you about Kate Argent.

It's a long story that you've spent a lot of time not thinking about. But Stiles looks at you, honey-brown eyes wide and waiting, and it tumbles out of your mouth.

Six – seven? - years after the fact and the memories still flay you as you drag them out of their dark corners. The words feel like shards of glass in your throat, but Stiles pries at you mercilessly, demanding to know until you feel like you're hemorrhaging. But the story comes out, choppy and sometimes out of sequence, one damning sentence at a time.

It ends, somehow. You don't know how that works, how something that is such a huge part of you, that defines who you are and who you'll be for the rest of your life, can be expressed in a finite number of words, but the story ends and you literally have nothing more to say about Kate Argent.

Stiles' response?

_She was one fucked up bitch._

Six words. _Six_ words. You reach out to strangle him, but your fingers pass right through his skinny neck. And then he laughs at you, the little fucker, like this is some sort of stupid game. For him, maybe it is. Who can know with the dead.

He doesn't make you talk much more after that, thank God. (Not that you have much left to tell him anyway, seeing as you're still not even twenty-five yet and don't actually have that much in the way of a life story.) So the two of you just wander around in the forest, getting further and further away from Beacon Hills.

You accidentally find a clearing full of monkshood one day, when the wind is blowing hard and carrying its scent away from you. You stop at the edge of the clearing, wary, but Stiles walks straight into the flowers, his incorporeal feet sliding through them. He stops close to the center and glares down at them like they've personally offended Scott's mother. It's an impressive glare.

He twitches and turns back to you, his eyes wide and startled.

 _Dude, you need to break free of this. Like, lickity-split, pronto, chopchop, NOW_ , he says, gesturing frantically at... nothing.

You vaguely remember Deaton saying something similar. “Break free of what?”

Stiles waves an all-encompassing arm. _This. Everything_. He gestures at himself. _Especially me._

You grit your teeth.

“No,” you say, because you're not ready to give up what little of Stiles you have left. Not even if hanging onto his ghost makes you weak.

But Stiles is like a dog with a bone after that, refusing to let things lie.

 _None of this is real!_ he cries, scrubbing his hands over his buzz cut in frustration.

You snarl at him. You already know, alright? You know that he's not actually Stiles, that Stiles died and he's just some kind of ghost that you've conjured up to haunt you because you couldn't bring yourself to let go. Seriously, the absolute last thing you need is your delusions telling you telling you that you're delusional because you _already know_.

 _Talk to your pack_ , he demands. _Talk to Scott, to my dad, hell, talk to Jackson fucking Whittemore, just talk to_ someone _who isn't me._

You don't want to. In fact, you haven't talked to your betas in longer than you can remember. It's been so long that you can only feel their ties to you when you close your eyes and dig deep for the fragile threads. And everyone else, you literally have no clue how they're doing, not even the Sheriff. But that barely concerns you because you don't need the Sheriff anymore now that you have your own Stiles.

 _Let me go,_ he begs. _I'm not him. I swear to God I'm not. I'm a figment of your imagination, remember? Please just let me go._

But you can't. You _need_ him. You've gotten too dependent on his ghost or delusion or fantasy to live without it.

Stiles digs his fingers into his scalp, screaming with frustration through clenched teeth.

 _FINE_ , he bellows, and you have just enough time to feel a frisson of unease before he disappears into thin air.

You stand frozen for a painfully long moment, bombarded by memories of the last time he yelled 'Fine' and left you.

“Stiles?” you call, looking around as though he's just hiding behind a tree. “Stiles!”

None of your senses can help you now. How do you track something that has no presence in the first place? Still, you begin to run, eyes darting as you search for him. Your feet instinctively carry you back to Beacon Hills, but you see no sign of him anywhere.

And of course you don't, because he's not real, but you don't want to think about that and what it says about the state of your sanity. You just want him _back_.

The town seems quieter than it used to, like somehow half the population moved out while you were off talking to yourself in the woods. And who knows? Between Peter and Gerard tearing up the town maybe they did.

Stiles isn't in his old house. In fact, nothing is in Stiles' house, not even the furniture. The Sheriff's scent clings to the bare rooms, but only just. He's long gone, though to where, you couldn't say.

The high school is in session, but you can't find Scott or Allison or Jackson or Lydia or even Danny. You howl for your pack because you never did find your cell phone, but none of your betas answer. Not even Peter answers.

You go to the Argent house hoping for something, information or news or even a wolfsbane bullet, but the Argents aren't there anymore. The unfamiliar woman who answers their door tells you that they moved out a while ago and that she doesn't know where they went or why.

You try your old house only to find that its been torn down by the county. There's not even a pile of rubble, the blackened timber having already been hauled off. When you go to your warehouse hideout, you find it full of crates, evidently in use again and re-purposed while you were gone.

Panicking, you run to the houses of everyone you'd associated with and find them either empty or housing a family of strangers. Even Harris and Coach Finstock are gone.

It hurts to breathe around the growing ache in your chest. You pant for breath but you feel like you're drowning, like your suffocating on the actual air itself. The world becomes flecked with bright spots of color as your vision tunnels and your knees shake against the hellward pull of reality. You fall--

&&&

Your aunt used to laugh and tell you that routine was the silent killer. She'd randomly pull you and the other kids out of school on outings, sometimes to a park, sometimes to a museum, sometimes to a restaurant or ice cream shop, but always somewhere new. It never failed to get her in trouble with you parents and the rest of your aunts and uncles, but she'd just laugh them off saying, “Routine is the silent killer.” When you met Kate Argent for the first time, it was your aunt that she'd reminded you of.

Your aunt was wrong though. Routine never killed anyone so far as you know, but loneliness has. And really, when you first thought about it, you realized that there is no killer quieter on its feet than isolation.

You knew loneliness. Or at least you thought you did. After Laura died, you'd thought you were alone in the world with nothing and no one to tie your soul down but your breathing body. It wasn't true, fortunately. You had an uncle, comatose as he was, you had Stiles and Scott prying into your business at all times, and you had an Alpha to hunt down and a sister to avenge. So you weren't really _alone_ so much as lacking in companionship.

But you're alone now. No Stiles, no pack, not even Gerard Argent coming to chop you in half. You have _nothing_.

&&&

The dandelion you buried outside the warehouse sprouted a few plants, so you pluck their flowers, yellow and fuzz alike. They look small and pathetic in front of Stiles' headstone.

“Stiles, please,” you beg quietly, staring down at the speckled granite.

“I'm going fucking insane,” you plead. “I've _gone_ insane. I killed my family and then I killed you and now everyone's left Beacon Hills for God knows where and I literally fucking _fainted_ when I realized I literally had no one in the world who gave even half a damn about me. I can't do this alone. I need your help, Stiles. _Please_.”

 _What would you do_ , a familiar voice says from behind you, _if I told you you could see Stiles – the real Stiles – again?_

You turn, swallowing against the dry rasp in your throat. “Anything,” you reply. Your voice sounds husky and raw to your ears, so laden down with hope and disbelief that it scrapes the bottom of your register. Stiles is standing there with his hands in his pockets, casual as you please. He looks like he's always looked to you; that is to say, he looks exactly how he did when he left you and died.

_Really? Anything?_

“ _Anything_ ,” you reaffirm, stung by his obvious doubt.

Stiles snorts and folds his arms over his chest. _I don't believe you_.

You wish you cold grab him and slam him up against a wall or a tree or a car like you used to do, back when he was solid and alive under your hands, but now all you can do is growl and flash your red eyes and flex your fingers. Stiles continues to look unimpressed.

“What do you want me to do?”

 _Lots of things. But since we're a little pressed for time, let's just go with the most important one. Accept this_ , Stiles gestures to his headstone. _Move on, leave, live an actual life and do actual shit._

You look at him. You look back at the dandelions. You look at the dates beneath Stiles' name.

“Without you. You want me to live without you.”

_Yes. Because Stiles is d-e-d dead and he would give you so much shit for refusing to move on. He'd give you all the shit. Forever and shitting ever amen._

“You think it's that easy? That I can just decide to be over it?” You clench your fists at your sides, wishing you could grab him by the shirt and shake him. Standing here, glaring and shouting and not being able to touch him makes you feel so powerless.

 _Of course not,_ Stiles snorts. He waves a hand at the headstone next to his own. It reads 'Loving Mother, Loyal Friend, Emma Stilinski'.

 _If it helps_ , he continues, _think of it this way. It didn't take very long for you to tell me your entire life story, did it? No. So if you don't go out and actually do shit, what are you going to tell Stiles when you actually do see him again? That you had a fun childhood, six years of Hell, and then you just fucking gave up and laid down to die? You think he'll be impressed by that?_

No. No he won't. You know he won't. He'll get that pinched, frustrated look he always gets when he's truly disappointed. The same look his ghost is wearing right now. Out of all the things you want and the endless things you don't want, Stiles being disappointed and ashamed of you is probably one of the things you want least, right after the resurrection of Kate Argent.

And that's why you'll do this. It'll hurt and you'll hate it and you won't want to do it, but you'll do it and make a good faith effort because that's what Stiles deserves, even if he never deserved someone as broken and weak as you.

“I don't want you to disappear,” you say, pushing your clenched fists into your jacket pockets.

He smiles, a little shy and a little happy. _That's a nice sentiment, but you're not gonna see him until I do._

You look at him, memorizing his expression of hesitant triumph, the way his baggy shirts hang on his broad shoulders, how his plaid is still as tasteless as it was the first time you saw him wear it. And then you walk past him.

“See you around, Stiles,” You call. It's hard to fake casual goodbyes, but you're desperate and determined and you think you did a decent job at pretending.

 _Bye, Derek. See you later_ , Stiles answers back. You're tempted to get one last look, one last glimpse over your shoulder at the boy who was meant for you before you ruined him, but there's shit to do, as Stiles would say, and you're going to do it so you can see him laugh when you tell him you did the fuck out of all that shit.

You're almost to the cemetery entrance when Stiles, your fake ghost Stiles, abruptly materializes in front of you.

 _Almost forgot,_ he says with a wink. He takes your right arm, wrist in one warm hand and elbow in the other, and snaps your forearm like a toothpick. You roar at the sudden pain, your vision blacking out--

&&&

You bellow again when hands drag your broken arm back into alignment. You try to struggle because mother _fuck_ that _hurts_ , but there are more hands holding you down, pressing you into the mattress. Someone is practically laying on your face, cradling your head against their chest, and you bite down, the guy yelping as your teeth sink into the meat of his pectoral. Your healing kicks in, the rush of endorphins dulling the pain almost immediately and you realize that your nose is full of the smell of Isaac and blood.

“Ow ow Derek,” he whines, and you release him, pulling your fangs back in and dazedly looking around you. Your entire pack is there, their eyes wide and worried and their hands holding your limbs to the bed. Deaton is there too, but his back is to you as he fusses over someone lying on a cot set parallel with the bed.

It's Stiles' bed, you notice belatedly. Stiles' bed in Stiles' room with Stiles' kitschy decorations and Stiles' boy-scent all over everything. And when Deaton moves to the side, coiling an IV line around his hand, there's Stiles, pale and still like death.

You lunge for him. Or you try to, thrashing in earnest against your pack's restraining hold.

“Stiles!” You shout. “Stiles!” He doesn't move, just lays there like a goddamn _corpse_ and you struggle harder, your betas hunched over their respective limbs until Deaton backs clear of the beds and says,

“Let him go.”

They let go all at once. You think you catch Scott in the arm, and you definitely get Erica with a shin to the face, but you're throwing yourself off the bed, your limbs uncooperative and lethargic as you kneel next to the cot.

Stiles' cheeks are warm between your palms and he scrunches his nose. You can hear his heartbeat now, thrumming loud and slow and even in his thin chest. When you listen closer, you can hear the air flowing in and out of his lungs and the rushing of his blood through his body.

He's alive. Maybe this is a dream (or a nightmare) and maybe this is another one of your delusions, but your senses are telling you that this is Stiles and Stiles is _alive_.

You gently pat his cheek, trying to rouse him. “Stiles.”

His lips purse and his eyebrows do something uncoordinated and he mumbles, “Popcorn chicken, hold the celery.”

Deaton lays a hand on your shoulder. “He'll need time to rest. He hasn't slept in four days.”

Your scowl is directed at Stiles because you can't tear your eyes from the boy's face. “What do you mean, four days? And what the hell happened?”

“You wandered into a trap,” Boyd says.

“Yeah,” Scott adds. “Like one of those wasp traps, but for werewolves.”

Deaton comes into your peripheral vision and straps a blood pressure cuff to Stiles' limp arm, tucking a stethoscope underneath and beginning to pump.

“Scott has the gist of it. It was a clearing full of a very particular strain of monkshood and surrounded by mountain ash trees. A very primitive but extremely effective trap for werewolves that the Argents developed long enough ago that they've forgotten how to make them.”

You rub your fingers along Stiles' hairline and slip one hand down his cheek until his heartbeat throbs against the heel of your palm.

“How does it work?” you prompt.

“The particular variety in the clearing caused you to fall into a comatose state while also acting something like a powerful psychoactive drug. It forced you to dream of your worst fear. It's a very good thing Stiles is human and thus immune to its effects, otherwise you and your whole pack might have slowly starved to death.”

Stiles' scent fills your nose as the boy shifts in his sleep, mumbling something about Lifetime movies. You peel one hand off his face to gesture dismissively in your betas' general direction and they obediently shuffle out without a hint of their usual contrariness leaving you and Stiles and Deaton alone.

“Why is he sleeping? And why did he stay up for four days straight?”

“When I tried to draw you out of the coma, I realized it would be impossible for me to do so. Because of the nature of your dream, I asked Stiles to step in. The technique requires the user's mind to stay awake and alert, so even though he spent four days physically asleep, his brain was fully awake and working on freeing you from the monkshood's influence. It's really quite a feat.” Deaton reaches over and rubs at a smudge of what looks like ash on Stiles' forehead. “I'm honestly surprised that it only took four days, but Stiles does have a way of surprising us.”

You nod. And then nod again as your adrenaline levels finally crash. You're not sure how you can possibly still be tired after having slept for at least four days, but it's an effort to keep your eyes open all of a sudden.

Deaton touches your shoulder again. “Let's get him on the bed and you can both rest.”

You grunt and lift Stiles off the cot. He's lanky and completely limp in your arms, but still pretty light for someone who stands eye-to-eye with you. Deaton draws back the sheets and you lay him down, sliding in next to him and pulling the covers up over you both. You don't hear Deaton's “Sleep well” because you're unconscious almost the moment your head lands on Stiles' shoulder.

&&&

Stiles sleeps for a full two days. You're not much better, your body still processing the remnants of the wolfsbane you spent almost three days lying in. It should seem impossible that you're so tired after apparently spending a week in a coma, but you're constantly dozing off like a narcoleptic off their medication. Under ordinary circumstances, it would probably drive you up the walls, but Deaton has somehow convinced the Sheriff to let you sleep in Stiles' bed _with Stiles_ until you recover. It probably took telling the Sheriff about Beacon Hills' resident werewolf problem, but you don't care anymore.

On the morning of the third day you wake up to see Stiles grinning at you from three inches away.

“Dude,” he says, voice hoarse and breath disgustingly sour from a week without a toothbrush. “Dude, I was totally Mal from _Inception_ except backward. I started off not knowing the dream was just a dream and then I was incepted with the knowledge that the dream was totally a dream and that we had to get you out of there pronto.”

You squint and blink, rubbing the crusts out of your eyes.

“Well, I guess that answers the question of how much you remember,” you croak. You lean back enough to snag the glass of water you'd set on the bedside table and manage a few sips before Stiles snatches it out of your hands and chugs the rest.

“Everything.” Stiles says, smacking his lips noisily. The cup goes back onto the nightstand and he wraps his arms around you, pulling you down to lie on his chest. “You're a jackass and I have so much shit to give you for all the crap you've put me through.”

You smile. It seems like the thing to do. “Can I get my sentence commuted if I grovel and beg for forgiveness?” 

Stiles pretends to ponder it. “Throw in a few makeouts and I'll consider leniency.” 

You smile wider. Your cheeks are starting to ache with the strain. It's been a while since they last got this much of a workout. 

“Makeout number one,” you murmur. You lean in and kiss him, sour breath and all, and feel his smile against yours.

**Author's Note:**

> Lololol, told you there was a happy ending.
> 
> I wrote the first half of this hot mess high on the feels from 2x10 and colethehuman's post until I ran out of feels. And then 2x11 happened and I had more feels than I knew what to do with, so the other half got written. So yeah, that's why this is so ridiculous and awful.


End file.
